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The Romanian government, through the National Tax Administration Authority (ANAF), aims to destroy Romanian international road transport companies by taxing the drivers' daily subsistence allowances, the President of the Road Hauliers' Employers' Associations (APTE 2002 ), Dorin Jurjut told a press conference on Thursday.
Dissatisfaction with the practice of ANAF to tax drivers' daily subsistence allowances, including retroactively for a period of 5 years, brought together in Thursday's press conference, the representatives of seven road hauliers' employers' associations: the National Union of Romanian Hauliers (UNTRR), the Federation of Romanian Transport Operators (FORT), Confederation of Romanian Authorised Operators and Hauliers (COTAR), Romanian Association for International Road Transports (ARTRI), Association of Employers of Transporters Europe 2002 (APTE 2002), Association of Road Carriers from Bucovina (ATM Bucovina) and the Association of Road Transporters "Apulum" Alba Iulia.
"Unfortunately, a transport company locks its doors as long as our meeting lasts. At best, if it does not go bankrupt, that investor is thinking of moving to Hungary or Slovakia. Is that what the Romanian Government wants, given that they are not engaging in a dialogue with us? (...) We are competing with all companies in Western Europe. Insofar as we are taxed with the daily subsistence allowances, we will no longer be able to compete with Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and other countries, including in the western states, where the daily allowance is exempt from payroll taxes. (...) In recent months we have witnessed concerted actions by the Romanian state, including ANAF, that unequivocally aim to destroy Romanian transport by retroactively taxing daily allowances for five years," President of APTE 2002 Dorin Jurjut said, Agerpres informs.
He explained that the taxation of daily allowances for drivers of road hauliers' employers' associations would mean taking Romanian companies off the international market and argued that the tax inspectors sent by ANAF to road transport companies with the precise purpose of imposing tax calculations for daily allowances fulfill their task against their own will and conscience.
Tax consultant Petru Horga, also representing APTE 2002, explained that the daily allowance is not a salary income.
UNTRR representative Lorena Sandu said that ANAF's practice of taxing drivers' daily allowance has no legal basis, as the specific legislation has not changed, and added that all other EU states have non-taxable daily allowances.
The representative of FORT and ATM Bucovina, Alin Cretu, also stressed that no EU member state taxes drivers' daily allowance, except Romania.
The president of COTAR, Vasile Stefanescu, also appreciated that the Government's practice of treating drivers' daily allowances as salaries, therefore taxable, represents a plan to destroy the Romanian road transport.
